Friday, August 27, 2010

Georgia tailback Washaun Ealey was arrested early on Friday morning on charges of hit and run and driving on a suspended license; Ealey was also held on an outstanding bench warrant from July.

The municipal bench warrant was for failing to appear in court after a speeding ticket.

The charges are misdemeanors. Ealey was being held at jail on bond as of Friday at 11 a.m.

Ealey, 21, was arrested by the UGA Police, who said alcohol was not involved, and no one was injured.

Ealey, a sophomore, was Georgia’s leading rusher last year with 717 yards, and scored three touchdowns.

He was expected to share carries this year with junior Caleb King, who on Thursday was named the tentative starter by running backs coach Bryan McClendon.

There has been no comment yet from Georgia or head coach Mark Richt, which is understandable since Ealey was booked just after 5 a.m.

Jimmy Williamson, police chief of the university of Georgia, said Ealey was charged with two misdemeanors: driving on a suspended license and failing to obey "duty upon strike."

At 3:19 a.m., a vehicle made contact with a parked vehicle in the East parking deck at UGA. That was witnessed by parking service employees, who confronted the driver. The driver parked the car and left the scene.

Officers arrived and tracked the car to an Athens residence. They first talked to his roommate, who informed them it had been his roommate, Ealey, driving the car.

The police spoke to Ealey, and determined that he had been driving on a suspended license. He was subsequently arrested.

This is the eighth Georgia player to be arrested this calendar year. Tavarres King, a receiver, is suspended for at least the season opener after being cited for underage possession of alcohol.

It also follows the high-profile arrest of then-athletics director Damon Evans on June 30. Evans was arrested in Atlanta on charges of driving under the influence, and embarrassing details in the police report led to his forced resignation.

Ealey is also the fourth Georgia player in the past year to be charged with operating a vehicle without a license or with a suspended license.

27 comments:

If taking off from the scene wasn't bad enough, you have got to be f'in kidding me with the suspended license!!??!?!! Holy crap we have to have the dumbest players in the entire country. Jesus. I suspect 1 game?

Jericho, I understand that but he wan't even driving his own ride so I don't think it would be a stretch to think he would take off regardless being told the police were being called and it was after 3am. Not a good situation for him knowing that is going to get out in the media regardless. 3am really? Granted this isn't UT bad and he wasn't drunk, but we aren't going to win squat with the commitment being shown by some players. Did he think he could just blow off the parking attendent and nothing would happen? I love Ealey but is that stupidity or just ego? Either way, the leaders of our team (if there are any) need to call him out in front of the entire team. Also, I thought Mark Richt flat out said he was going to help nip this suspended license epidemic in the bud AWHILE back. I want to believe things will be different this year but this makes 7 players arrested. These suspended licenses are what are leading to a lot of the arrests over the last few years. It is just so frustrating. I'm sure someone sitting on their ass in Butts-Mehre can spend a few hours working with UGA or Athens Police to check everyones status to avoid the embarrassment of the program splashed across the newswire and show people the Police actually want to be helpful instead of the general consensus they are always looking for ticky-tack stuff to nail people with. Just my $.02.

Jericho, I understand that but he wan't even driving his own ride so I don't think it would be a stretch to think he would take off regardless being told the police were being called and it was after 3am. Not a good situation for him knowing that is going to get out in the media regardless. 3am really? Granted this isn't UT bad and he wasn't drunk, but we aren't going to win squat with the commitment being shown by some players. Did he think he could just blow off the parking attendent and nothing would happen? I love Ealey but is that stupidity or just ego? Either way, the leaders of our team (if there are any) need to call him out in front of the entire team. Also, I thought Mark Richt flat out said he was going to help nip this suspended license epidemic in the bud AWHILE back. I want to believe things will be different this year but this makes 7 players arrested. These suspended licenses are what are leading to a lot of the arrests over the last few years. It is just so frustrating. I'm sure someone sitting on their ass in Butts-Mehre can spend a few hours working with UGA or Athens Police to check everyones status to avoid the embarrassment of the program splashed across the newswire and show people the Police actually want to be helpful instead of the general consensus they are always looking for ticky-tack stuff to nail people with. Just my $.02.

ITs called and excel spread sheet. Some one in ButtsMehere needs to make one with the players name and the expiration date of their license out beside it. That person then checks it once a month and notifies all the players to get there license renewed...Hell pay me $70k a year to do this. Guess what, I can still work another full time job on top of this. If the player hasn't renewed prior to 2 weeks before it expires, they run stadiums everyday at 5am until they go to the dmv (or online!!!!!) and get it fixed.

A suspended license differs from an expired license. A suspended license can result from a number of things, but I imagine failure to pay a moving violation or failure to maintain insurance or provide proof of insurance are the most common culprits. So it really comes down to a cash issue. Reggie Bush probably never had a suspended license.

Clearly this should be the responsibility of the players. However, I can imagine that occasionally a player will have a suspended license without knowledge. For example: you get cited in one of those camera tickets but the citation nevers lands in your hands b/c your address changes every year and is not updated with the DMV. You get a default judgment of guilty on the citation and when you don't pay the fine you aren't aware of by the due date, your license is suspended. I doubt this is the case for most of our suspended license issues, but it could be the case one of these times.

Anyway... someone in the athletic department should be able to keep up with this crap. Take the aforementioned spreadsheet, include the DL#'s and pay a private detective to run the #'s each week to discover DMV or other legal issues that arise. PI's have software that can grab this info in an instant. This assumes that the DMV won't cooperate and provide the information freely. Seriously, this isn't hard. (And don't talk to me about privacy issues... have every player sign a consent form and run with it.)

Caveat: I haven't practiced law in GA since 1998 - so don't sue me if something above is slightly misstated.

This is BS, players need to start stepping up and realizing that they are killing themselves and the team with this type of thing. How hard is it to avoid accidents, keep your DL current and not get it suspended and know that running off from an accident is only going to make things worse. I think Ealey is one heck of a player but it wouldn't bother me at all for Richt to say, you know what enough is enough and tell him find somewhere else to play. King was going to be the starter anyway, Thomas gives us a change of pace back, Malcome can be a good third back if someone gets hurt and maybe it will help get Crowell to sign knowing King will be a senior next year and there isn't Ealey to beat out.

All this crap about college kids all stay up till at least 2:00 AM is absolute BS. These kids represent the school - they are getting a free ride - Ealey can run fast big FOOKING DEAL. Ealey is 21 years old - he is a pampered irresponsible young man.

Not that I am special but when I was 21 I was flying helicopters over the jungles of Vietnam - damn this crap is getting under my skin.

College kids DO stay up past 2am on thurday nights quite often. Obviously not all of them...but many. I'm over 10 years out of college, never played a sport in college, and I and most of my friends considered Thurs night the start of the weekend...you never scheduled an early class for Friday.

Anon, cool it a bit here. He backed into a parked car and left. Do you have any idea about his background or where he's from? It's hard for me to believe that anyone from Stillmore, Georgia, has a sense of entitlement about anything.

I don't think anyone is making excuses for him because he's a football player. There's no one on here saying that what he did wasn't wrong or anything of the sort. All people are saying is that it's not unheard of for a college student to be out driving around at three in the morning (especially on a thursday). He's a 21 year old kid...21 year olds make mistakes. Let it go.

As an aside, I appreciate the fact that you served our country at 21 in Vietnam, but let's not exactly make it out as if all of our guys over there were completely mature and responsible.

Rob he did far more than simply back into a parked car. Get all the facts then we can discuss it.

My point regarding entitlement - he obviously feels he is above the law. Sure we have all gotten a speeding ticket - however we have all paid the fine or appeared in court. He obviously knew his license had been suspended - or he would not have fled the scene.

I'm just tired of people making excuses because the perp can run or catch or whatever.

I hear you and half the others saying ALL college students stay out all night - well I call BS. If you are a scholarship athlete you owe your school and teammates your best effort - that cannot be given after an all night-er.

Not sure what you meant by this but I'll let it ride..........

"but let's not exactly make it out as if all of our guys over there were completely mature and responsible."

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About the Author

Seth Emerson has been covering the SEC and Georgia (on and off) since 2002. He worked at the Albany Herald from 2002-05, then spent five years at The State in Columbia, S.C., covering South Carolina. He returned to Athens in August of 2010, only to find that David Pollack and David Greene were no longer playing for the Bulldogs. Adjustments were made.

Emerson is originally from Silver Spring, Md., and graduated from Maryland in 1998 with a degree in journalism and a minor in getting lost on the way to practically everywhere. Then he spent four years at The Washington Post, covering small colleges, a couple NCAA basketball tournaments, and on one glorious day, was yelled at by Tony Kornheiser. It was probably at The Post that he also learned to write in the third person.

These days he lives in Athens with his beloved and somewhat wimpy dog, Archie. Together they fight crime at night in northeast Georgia, except on nights there is no crime, in which case they sit at home, sip on white wine and watch reruns of "Mad Men."